It does everything it can to make itself a standard RPG plot, but that intentionality is what interests me. Every time DR feels like it's going to show its hand and comment on those tropes (As the first game did), it just... never does. It creates a very uneasy feeling.

There are LOTS of reused setpieces from powerful emotional moments in the first game here that make you think it's definitely setting up for some subversion of expectations, but that just never comes. You see them and then you leave.

Majora's Mask does the same thing by re-using character assets, but it follows through with a plot that makes you reconsider them as people instead of just NPCs. It uses those assets to support its themes.

Meanwhile, DR never does anything to explicitly imply that it's NOT playing this all totally straight until the very last scene, which is vague enough that it barely counts as a hint as much as it does... I dunno, a jump scare?

One of my favorite things about Undertale was its focus on empathy, both thematically and mechanically. By having the real goal of the game be to befriend every single monster by ACTing to their unique quirks. It made every monster feel like an individual that you COULD befriend.

Deltarune? DR just seems to boil everything down to a few basic commands that can be used across almost every battle. Even the battle screen is now arranged in an "Us vs. Them" format. Susie will try and kill anything that you don't explicitly deny her the chance.

In short, it feels like the message here is "Contain your worst instincts" and "ACT so you can move on" more than anything. The game even takes away the possibility of rightful ramifications for killing a monster.

No one other than the protagonists feels real. They're charming as hell, sure, but they don't feel like they're inhabitants of their world - they feel like they exist to serve their purpose as NPCs. That's... deeply unsettling, considering the message of the previous game.

I'm just going to say it, I hate the uncritical acceptance that *other* route through Undertale has gotten. I hate that players view it as innocent extra content as opposed to the evisceration of that shortsighted mindset that it is.

I hate that even when a game states its message of "You should not be playing this because you should not leave morality at the door when playing games" on its sleeves, people still only see it as more content to be consumed. A challenge, not a statement.

@QuestForTori Personally i'm wondering how indicative it is of where the greater plot is going. As you said it feels more like a jump scare to get an emotional reaction - and I wonder whether it will even have any meaningful bearing on DR whenever it continues.

I'm not sure if the implication here is that the protagonist is Chara, adopted and renamed Kris, and we're a possessing spirit keeping them empathetic and moral. I'd be interested in that, at least?

@QuestForTori I'm less worried about the characters feeling flimsy at this point because likewise Undertale started with cute caricatures and expanded upon them to give them depth. If Toby is truly intending to expand upon this game into full length, it sounded like this is probably the first 20% at most. That leaves a lot of room to build up characters, I think.

@Shadejackrabbit yeah, the general response to this reading is "wait and see in later chapters", which I sincerely hope pays off, but I am still comfortable assessing the game for what it is and what it is showing us now without hinging that on what it could be later.

I agree, it'll probably turn around, but for now, this is Deltarune, and I wanted to talk about it as it stands